


leave (vb): to go away from, to remain

by sunshinesvt



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, basically a lot of boys being sad, pretty angsty tbh, spewing that wisdom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 21:47:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14881829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshinesvt/pseuds/sunshinesvt
Summary: You always hear stories about the one being left behind. They should tell more stories about the ones leaving, Mingyu thinks, as he stares blankly at the road disappearing behind him in the rearview mirror. Because they all talk about being left behind, but no one ever told him that leaving would hurt like this.(In which Mingyu is Wonwoo's moon.)





	leave (vb): to go away from, to remain

**Author's Note:**

> who needs to study for finals when you can write a fanfiction?
> 
> please forgive me for any mistakes- this was written in the sleep-deprived state of finals week! also, it's pretty much just a collection of sad moments that I had compiled and then threw together, but hopefully you enjoy it nonetheless.

Mingyu leaves.

\---

You always hear stories about the one being left behind. The pain that they feel, the heartbreak they feel watching the person they love walk away from them. The longing they feel staring at the other’s back, the desire to make them stay, and the hollowness that comes with knowing that they won’t. You hear about the sorrow they feel, the guilt that they should’ve tried harder, and the wondering as to why they weren’t enough for the other person to stay.

You always hear stories about the one being left behind. They should tell more stories about the ones leaving, Mingyu thinks, as he stares blankly at the road disappearing behind him in the rearview mirror. Because they all talk about being left behind, but no one ever told him that leaving would hurt like this.

\---

Wonwoo had asked once, in a dark room with moonlight barely filtering in through the cheap blinds, the sounds of their breathing soft in the quiet, “Do you think that we’ll be together forever?”

Mingyu had sighed, a content sigh that was accompanied with the quirk of the corners of his lips. “Yes,” he whispered, voice inching its way across the sheets, hanging in the space between them with the heaviness of a promise and the lightness of love, “I’ll never leave you.”

\---

He makes it there, in one piece, somehow. Gently raps his knuckles against the door, and it sounds weak to his ears, everything quiet in comparison to the gentle click of the door that he had shut behind him when he left.

The door opens a crack, and Minghao takes one look at him and steps aside to let him in. Minghao doesn’t ask, just lets Mingyu pull his suitcase in behind him, and leads him to the guest room. Mingyu doesn’t say anything, just sits on the edge of the bed, quiet, so quiet, and feels as his heart finally seems to catch up with what happened, with what he did.

It stutters in his chest, and then seizes.

Mingyu clutches at it and doubles over, willing himself not to cry, because he was the one who left, and the one who left is not the one that’s supposed to feel pain. 

\---

They were happy. Mingyu knew that they were happy. He knew that Wonwoo knew they were happy. They were happy, in every sense of the word. Arguments arose every once in a while, but they were happy. They were in love.

They were that couple, the one their friends teased at first and then just stopped because it became established as the status quo and it was no longer fun. They were the couple that everyone went to for advice, they were the couple that everyone asked to go on double dates with, they were the couple that everyone had placed bets on as to who would get married first. 

(Mingyu had placed a bet on them too. Wonwoo had laughed, and in a moment of defiance, placed his bet on Minghao and Junhui. “That was dumb,” Mingyu said. “We’re gonna get married first, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Wonwoo had said, snuggling in close to Mingyu’s side as Minghao and Junhui blushed and avoided eye contact with each other. “But now we have to wait for them to get married first so that I win all the money.”

Mingyu hummed. “Will you share it with me?”

Wonwoo said, “Obviously.”)

They were the epitome of in love. They were the example for a couple in love, a couple that would be together forever, the example Seokmin would use whenever he wanted to argue against Jihoon and say that true love and soulmates existed. 

They were in love. They were happy.

And then Mingyu left.

\---

“What now?” Minghao asks. They’re sitting at the kitchen table. The sun is glaring through the windows, and Mingyu just stares down at his untouched coffee. 

Minghao doesn’t ask him what happens, although Mingyu reckons that Junhui already told him. Minghao doesn’t ask him if he’s okay, and Mingyu wonders if it’s because he assumes that Mingyu’s fine or if it’s because he knows that Mingyu’s not.

A gentle shrug of his shoulders, and Minghao sighs softly from across him. Mingyu had never thought about what would come after leaving. Had never thought about leaving in the first place, until he was already halfway out the door, the gentle click of the door waiting for him and Wonwoo behind him in the apartment too silent for either of them. 

He curls his hands around the mug, trying to pull the warmth from it into him, like it’ll make him feel less numb inside, like it’ll make everything okay.

Foolishly, he thinks that he wants Wonwoo to come back. The thought lingers in his head, in his chest, until it’s in his entire body, in his skin wherever Wonwoo had touched him, had held him, had loved him.

There is no making Wonwoo come back, Mingyu thinks. You can’t force someone to come back to you, not when you were the one who left.

\---

Like every cliche love story, they were best friends who fell in love. 

“For a couple so disgustingly in love,” Minghao used to complain, “you would think that you had an interesting love story.”

“No,” Seokmin would argue back, “this is way better. They’ve been friends together, realized they fell in love with each other, made out passionately, and now are living their best life. This is like the best love story ever.”

Jeonghan would laugh at them, pull Mingyu close to him and say, “Seokmin’s right. They’ve been together for so long that it’s hard for us to remember them separately. They’ve always been Mingyu and Wonwoo. That’s the best love story.”

Wonwoo would blush from next to Minghao, mutter a sarcastic comment under his breath about how Minghao was just jealous because Mingyu managed to get his best friend to fall in love with him while Minghao was just pining ridiculously. 

Mingyu would grin at Wonwoo, and then nod at Jeonghan, because he liked what Jeonghan said. Mingyu and Wonwoo have always been together, in a way. They were best friends, and then they fell in love. 

\---

Mingyu goes to work. Goes back to Minghao’s apartment. Eats. Sleeps. 

Repeats. He stares at his face in the mirror as he brushes his teeth, the way that his expression is held in a blank expression. He tries to smile at himself, and then gives up, letting his weak attempt at happiness melt right back off of his face so that his features are blank again.

He spits into the sink, and then looks back up at himself again. 

He feels numb, just like the blankness on his face suggests. Mingyu thinks that it’s probably best way, to feel numb. Because he knows that if he just lets himself feel, it’ll all come crashing down on top of him, and he’ll remember and hurt. 

So he just turns away from the mirror, climbs into bed, and pointedly ignores how the bed feels too warm and the room too quiet without Wonwoo next to him.

\---

“Parallel universes,” Seungcheol had proclaimed one day over sandwiches, “are 100% real. Like you can’t argue against that.”

Jihoon rolled his eyes from next to him, “why does it matter anyways? You can never go to them.”

Seungcheol just elbowed him and said, “right now, I’m imagining a parallel universe in which I don’t have to put up with your constant down self.”

Wonwoo had leaned up against Mingyu and said, “wow, imagine in a parallel universe in which we aren’t best friends.”

Mingyu had laughed and leaned back into his boyfriend, muttering cheesily, “there doesn’t exist one, Wonwoo. I’m your best friend in all of them.”

He had said it to be cheesy, to force that smile that he loved onto Wonwoo’s face, but he meant it. Because in every parallel universe, no matter who they were or where they were in life or what their names were, Mingyu couldn’t imagine a universe where there existed a Mingyu without a Wonwoo. 

“Don’t be cheesy,” Wonwoo had whispered back.

“It’s true,” Mingyu insisted. “We’re soulmates.”

Wonwoo had smiled, the sweet smile that reached his eyes and made Mingyu feel warm inside because he knew that that smile meant that Wonwoo loved him. 

Wonwoo said, “Maybe in this universe.”

Mingyu responded, adamant, “In all of the universes.”

\---

Mingyu doesn’t see Junhui for days, which is strange, considering that he’s staying in Minghao and Junhui’s shared apartment.

It comes as a surprise when he runs into Junhui in the morning.

“Hi,” Mingyu mutters, voice raspy from another sleepless night. “What are you doing here?”

Junhui scoffs, and says, “I live here, Mingyu.”

Mingyu scratches at the back of his neck sheepishly. “I kind of forgot,” Mingyu whispers. “Where have you been then?”

Junhui doesn’t look at Mingyu in the eye, and Mingyu understands immediately. Junhui and Wonwoo have always been close, after all. 

Mingyu feels the intense need to ask after Wonwoo, to know how he’s doing, as if he doesn’t already know that Junhui probably slept over in his apartment for the past week, holding Wonwoo as he refused to cry at night. 

He doesn’t, though.

Minghao comes out from the kitchen, dressed for work. He presses a quick kiss to Junhui’s lips, mutters a quick “gotta go, love you,” and leaves. 

Junhui hums and turns towards the kitchen, asking, “do you want anything to eat?”

Mingyu thinks that he makes an affirmative noise in the back of his throat, because Junhui turns for the kitchen, but he’s too busy staring at the air in front of him, where they had kissed. Something so quick, so subtle, but established, like how much they love each other.

They used to do that too, Mingyu thinks, whenever one of them had to leave for work or for anything without the other. He thinks back to when he left, thinks about how Wonwoo had his back turned to the door, fists clenched by his side, and how he hadn’t even watched Mingyu leave, probably couldn’t. He thinks about how he had turned away from Wonwoo too, pulled his suitcase after him out the door, the ghost of the kiss he should pressed quickly to Wonwoo’s lips burning on his mouth.

\---

When Minghao and Junhui got together, it was to groans of “fucking finally” (mostly from Jihoon) and congratulations (from everyone else).

Seokmin had laughed, and said, “Mingyu and Wonwoo, you better watch out. They’re coming after your title of cutest couple!”

Minghao had spluttered and Junhui pressed a quick kiss to his flushed cheeks. “They’ve already won,” Wonwoo conceded quickly. “Me and Mingyu will never be as cute as they are.”

Mingyu had laughed, looping an arm easily around Wonwoo’s shoulders. “They’ve won,” he agreed. “Me and Wonwoo are a boring old couple now. They’re still young and in love.”

Seungcheol groaned and said, “please stop talking about them like they’re decades younger than you. Sometimes I think that you and Wonwoo really are an old couple trapped in a young couple’s bodies.”

Jihoon had sniped, “ew, imagine how they’re gonna be when they’re old. How are they gonna act then if they already act old now?”

Chan said, “they’ll probably start eating dinner at 3 instead of at 5 like they do now.”

Wonwoo had thrown a bottle cap at Chan, who giggled and dove behind Seungcheol’s back for protection. Mingyu had laughed and agreed, because knowing them, they probably would. 

He smiled into Wonwoo’s hair, and Wonwoo asked, “what are you smiling like that for?”

Mingyu had hummed a gentle “nothing,” but he was happy, happy thinking about them as an old couple that was every bit as in love as they were then.

\---

Here’s the thing: Wonwoo was Mingyu’s person.

Mingyu doesn’t say that in the way that people talk about their partners, where they mutter it to be cute but then break up like a week later. Wonwoo was Mingyu’s person. 

They were best friends, and then boyfriends, and then they knew everything about each other, loved each other despite the flaws that they both had. They understood each other, on a level that Mingyu had never thought that someone could understand him. To label themselves as just best friends or just boyfriends or any other word would never have gotten across what they meant to each other. Languages never developed to the point of being able to put the depth of their love for each other into words. 

Wonwoo was Mingyu’s person. And Mingyu was Wonwoo’s. 

And to be without him, to walk away from him, to leave Wonwoo behind in the life they had built together- well, languages never developed to the point of being able to put Mingyu’s pain into words either. 

\---

Minghao and Junhui were fighting. Mingyu sits on the floor, his head leaning back against the closed door of the guestroom, listening to the quiet way in which Minghao and Junhui argued, keeping their voices low so that Mingyu couldn’t hear them.

He could, anyways. And it’s not like he didn’t know what they were fighting about.

“I get that you’re angry at Mingyu,” Minghao snaps harshly on the other side of the door. “But you’re taking this a little too far.”

“He left,” Junhui says. “He left Wonwoo in that goddamn apartment for god knows what reason, and he’s just hiding here. He hurt Wonwoo, Minghao.”

There’s a soft thud, and Mingyu can imagine the way that Junhui had stopped his foot down. “I know,” Minghao says, softer. “But it’s none of our business- it’s theirs, okay?”

“What does Mingyu even want?” Junhui mutters harshly. “He’s just hiding here, and you’re helping him and caring for him when he doesn’t even deserve it.”

Mingyu closes his eyes.

“Hey,” Minghao snaps. “That’s enough. You don’t get to speak about him like that.”

“Then how should I speak about him?”

“I get that you’re protective over Wonwoo,” Minghao says, voice level. “But Mingyu is your friend too. To say that he doesn’t deserve someone to care for him? That’s low.”

“He hurt Wonwoo.”

“And you think that Mingyu isn’t hurting too?” Mingyu snaps out harshly. “You know how much Mingyu loves Wonwoo, how deeply he cares for him, how Wonwoo is the most important thing in the world to him. Of course, Mingyu is hurting too. You think that Mingyu would just leave Wonwoo for anything?”

“Then why did Mingyu leave him?” Junhui asks. “Why would he, if he loves him that much?”

There’s a pause, and Mingyu holds his breath. 

“I don’t know,” Minghao admits. “But there’s only one thing that would ever make Mingyu give up Wonwoo, and that’s Wonwoo himself.”

\---

Mingyu loves what he does, he really does. There’s something about bringing words to life, about drawing what other people imagine in their heads and translating it into something tangible, to solidify other people’s visions.

Wonwoo loves what he does too. He’s always loved writing, the ideas and stories in his heads overflowing and demanding in so many ways. Wonwoo loves words, loves the ways that he could weave them together to make people feel, to make people see the stories that had only existed in his head and the feelings that he wants them to understand.

Their apartment had always been a mess because they both loved what they did too much- Mingyu’s sketches stretching across the dining table, the color pencils popping up in the most random places, and Wonwoo’s words scattered on pieces of paper and notebooks stacked up high on every surface. Their apartment was a warzone, looking as if hurricanes of creativity had wreaked havoc on the place.

Their kitchen table was the worst of all. It was a small one room apartment without room for an office, so they would sit across the table from each other, each lost in his own world, making art in his own way. Mingyu loved those moments most, when he would emerge from his art and look up to see Wonwoo sitting across from him, tongue peaking out and nose scrunched in concentration as his pen frantically worked its way across a piece of paper, desperate to get out all of his ideas before he lost them. 

He would look up, and Wonwoo would be sitting across from him, and then Wonwoo would look up, smile at him, and they would both go back to work.

Mingyu loves what he does, and he loved it most when he got to do it with Wonwoo by him. 

\---

Mingyu looks up from his sketch, half down and all wrong, and looks at the wall in front of him. 

There’s no Wonwoo.

Mingyu stands up, and throws the sketch in the trash.

\---

Wonwoo writes a poem, sometime in time since Mingyu closed the door behind him and now. It’s staring back at Mingyu from the magazine, and Mingyu drinks it in, drinks in Wonwoo’s words like they're his lifeline, because they’re the only part of Wonwoo Mingyu has left.

He reads the words, can hear Wonwoo’s deep, gentle voice in the back of his mind, the words smooth in the tone of his voice. He reads the words, feels the emptiness that Wonwoo had written it with and wanted his readers to feel. Mingyu reads the words over and over again until he can’t feel anything but Wonwoo’s emptiness, the emptiness that he had left Wonwoo with.

It’s in the literary magazine, Mingyu absently notices. The one that Wonwoo had been denied from before. Mingyu clutches the magazine in his fingers, feeling it, feeling the pages in which Wonwoo had written his words. 

He reads it over and over again. Until there’s nothing left but the pain of the knowledge that he’s the reason why Wonwoo had written it.

\---

“I wrote you something,” Wonwoo said, on Mingyu’s birthday. “You said you didn’t want me to buy you anything, and this is really the only thing I can do, so.”

Mingyu had smiled and made grabby hands for the sheet of paper in Wonwoo’s hand. “What’s it about?” Mingyu asked, finally getting the piece of paper as Wonwoo places it gently in his hand.

“A boy,” Wonwoo says, “who has the sun and the earth, and still chooses to look at the moon.”

Mingyu didn’t read it, not yet, just said, “isn’t that a little sad? He’s looking at something he can’t have while ignoring what he does.”

Wonwoo giggled, said, “no, it’s not supposed to be sad. He chooses to look at the moon, and the moon chooses to look at him too.”

“Ah,” Mingyu said, “it’s a love story.”

He read it, the words sinking into him and giving him warmth that only Wonwoo could ever give him. He rolled over to face Wonwoo after he was done, both of them tucked into bed. Said, “It’s beautiful.”

Wonwoo said, “It’s yours, now.”

Mingyu said, “I feel selfish, keeping it to myself. You should submit it for publishing.”

Wonwoo smiled sadly, reached up to tug on Mingyu’s hair, and said, “It’s not for sharing. And they wouldn’t publish it, you know that.”

Mingyu whispered, “Yes they would. Who wouldn’t want to read about the boy and the man in the moon?”

Wonwoo had hummed, and then said, “it’s your story, Mingyu. Not anyone else’s.”

Mingyu looked at the man he loved and hummed. He turned the light off and pulled Wonwoo close to him, because he knew what Wonwoo meant. There wouldn’t be many people, not in Korea, that would want to read, or publish, the story of the boy falling in love with the man in the moon.

\---

It takes about two weeks for Minghao to cave.

He corners Mingyu in the kitchen one day, and while Minghao may be skinny, he can be intimidating. Mingyu accepts his fate quickly.

“I don’t understand,” Minghao says. Asks, “when did it fall apart?”

Mingyu says, “It didn’t.” It hadn’t. They were happy, and then Mingyu left. Things didn’t fall apart. That would imply that the relationship had declined and that they were both unhappy and that things fell apart on their own. But that wasn’t the case- Mingyu had left, had torn a perfectly happy relationship to shreds, just like he had torn Wonwoo’s heart apart. 

“Then why did you leave?”

The words come, unbidden, “I had to.”

Minghao shakes his head. “You didn’t have to.”

Mingyu thinks back to the life he had before, the one he had built around Wonwoo, with Wonwoo. Thinks about the life that Wonwoo had built for himself, the life that Wonwoo had tried to build for himself but couldn’t. He thinks about the passion with which Wonwoo writes, his tongue peaking out and the words swirling in his head, pen frantic against the paper in a race to get it all down. He thinks about the way Wonwoo’s eyes light up whenever he gets a new idea or talks about his stories, thinks about the love that Wonwoo has for the scraps of paper lying around their old apartment with simple phrases or half-completed ideas. 

He thinks about the rejected slump of Wonwoo’s shoulders, the way he had turned his back to Mingyu so Mingyu wouldn’t see him cry when he got rejected for publishing just because they found out he was in love with Mingyu and not a woman. He thinks about the smile Wonwoo had etched on his face when he turned around and how he said, “it’s fine, it’s fine,” when it wasn’t, and how that fake smile paled in comparison to the smile he had when he wrote.

“Yes,” Mingyu says. “I did.”

\---

They both love what they do. But here’s the thing: Mingyu had put himself in a field where he’s mostly behind the scenes, had put himself into a field where he brought other people’s ideas to life, where he wasn’t the creator, where it didn’t matter who he was or the fact that he was the one drawing.

Wonwoo, on the other hand, was an author. And authors put a piece of their soul into everything they write. It’s unfair, Mingyu thinks, that just because some publishers don’t like one part of Wonwoo that they would deny him entirely. 

Mingyu could do what he loved with the person he loved, without fear or consequence. Wonwoo couldn’t.

\---

Mingyu goes back two days later. He needs his things after all, and he had left them in the apartment when he left Wonwoo.

It’s at a time when Wonwoo should be out of the apartment, but when he creaks the door open slowly, Wonwoo looks up from the couch. 

It’s too much.

There’s the overwhelming need to run away, for Mingyu to flee so that he doesn’t make a mistake a throw away all of his suffering for nothing. There’s a need to run to Wonwoo, touch him, to feel him, real and solid, underneath his fingers. The needs pull at him, in opposite directions, and Mingyu just stays standing where he is. 

He says, “hi.”

Wonwoo says, “why didn’t you come back?”

Mingyu says, “because I left.”

Wonwoo asks, “why?”

“You know why.”

“I know,” Wonwoo says. “Doesn’t mean that I like it.”

This is Wonwoo, Mingyu thinks. Lips pressed in a flat line, unhappiness etched in every inch of his face, every bit the man he fell in love with and could never really leave behind. 

He says, the words unbidden, “I love you.”

Wonwoo says, “You’re selfish.”

It’s true, and Mingyu knows it. He’s so incredibly selfish. He left without really asking Wonwoo wanted, because he only cared about what he wanted.

“I’m only selfish when it comes to your happiness,” Mingyu says.

“I know,” Wonwoo mutters. “Which is fucking dumb. But I love you for it.”

Mingyu closes his eyes. He wants Wonwoo to yell at him, to push him, to throw something at him, to make him feel like absolute shit, just the way he deserves it. But Wonwoo has never been like that, has always loved Mingyu in that quiet way of his that he never deserved, has always loved Mingyu, even when Mingyu was being dumb and ruining things and ripping Wonwoo’s heart apart because he was selfish enough to want Wonwoo to be happy. 

“You published that poem,” Mingyu says. Opens his eyes.

“You read it,” Wonwoo says.

Mingyu replies, “It was beautiful. Like always.”

“Thank you.”

They stare at each other. Mingyu asks, “Are you happy?”

Wonwoo shakes his head. “No.”

Mingyu closes his eyes again. 

Wonwoo says, “being published may be my dream, but my dream is nothing if you’re not there with me.”

Mingyu wonders where he went wrong with all of this. Probably somewhere at the beginning, when he made decisions about how Wonwoo would be happiest. Thinks about how Wonwoo hadn’t really been happy, not when he was with Mingyu and suffering because of it, and not now, when he’s published and all alone.

“What do I do?” Mingyu asks, because Wonwoo is his best friend, his person, and the only one who could understand Mingyu and understand the question he is asking and give him the right answer.

Wonwoo understands. Says, “Leave.”

\---

Leaving, Mingyu finds out, hurts even more the second time.

\---

For Wonwoo’s birthday, Mingyu had painted a painting and given it to him.

“I love it,” Wonwoo had said, smiling up at him. “It’s perfect.”

It’s a boy, face turned up towards the sky, the moon shining down on him, the rays hitting him in a way that can only be described as loving.

“I never asked,” Mingyu said. “Which one of us is the boy and which one of us is the moon?”

Wonwoo smiled, leaned in to press a kiss to the corner of Mingyu’s mouth, said, “I like to think that both of us are the boy.”

Mingyu laughed, puzzled. “How can we both be the boy?”

Wonwoo turned to place the painting on the table and began the hunt for a nail so that he could hang it up on their wall.

Mingyu watched him as he scurried around their home, in the home they had lived in, in the home that was theirs. 

“Because,” Wonwoo said, “I’m your moon, and you’re mine.”

\---

The boy loved the moon. He had the sun and the earth, both of which doted on him, but he loved the moon, the subtle presence of the moon that had always been with him. He loved the moon so much that he would’ve given up the sun and the earth and himself for the moon. He loved the moon quietly, because he thought that the moon was too far away, was too out of reach, was too good for him.

“Do you love me?” the boy asked the moon, who smiled down at him. 

“More than you could ever know,” the moon said. The boy thinks about how much he loves the moon, how the moon could never love him as much as the boy loved the moon.

“I would give up everything for you,” the boy said. “I love you that much.”

The moon said, “I have already given up everything for you. I love you that much and more.”

\---

The poem is about the moon. How the narrator loves the moon, how the moon is too far out of reach, how the moon gave up everything for the narrator, and left the narrator empty, cold, sad.

Mingyu reads it again.

He picks up his pencil, pulls his sketchbook close, and sketches the moon.

\---

“What’s up with you and Wonwoo?” Minghao had asked, years ago. “Are you guys like a thing or something?”

“No,” Mingyu had replied easily, not even looking up. “We’re best friends.”

“Dude, you’re like in love with him.”

Mingyu had said, “I know.”

“You know?” Minghao sounded incredulous. “You know? Are you like sad about it or something?”

Mingyu shrugged. “No,” he said. “I love him, he’s my best friend, and he’s my person. What’s there to be sad about?”

Minghao rolled his eyes. “Aren’t you supposed to be like heartbroken or desperately pining or something?”

“No,” Mingyu said, finally looking up. Minghao had his eyebrows furrowed together. “He loves me too.”

Minghao spluttered. “He loves you too? Then why aren’t you doing anything about it?”

“Don’t need to,” Mingyu said. “We’re in love and we’re happy. That’s what matters.”

Minghao said, “You guys aren’t even dating.”

“So?”

Minghao just said, “Your mind, dude. I have no idea what’s going in there. Like what do you mean ‘so’? Like if you’re in love with each other, shouldn’t you be dating?”

“We don’t have to be dating to be in love. There are a lot of couples that are dating that aren’t in love.”

“You make absolutely no sense to me.”

Mingyu put his sketch down, and looked Minghao straight in the eye. “He’s my person, Minghao. We don’t have to be dating. We don’t have to get married or whatever. He’s my person, and as long as he remains as my person forever, I don’t care.”

Minghao pressed his lips into a line. “You happy?”

Mingyu nodded. “Yes.”

\---

“You okay?” Minghao asks. “You seem sad.”

“I’m okay.”

“Clearly not.”

“I left,” Mingyu says. “I left him. It’s on me.”

“You love him,” Minghao replies, voice somewhat flat. “Everyone knows that.”

Mingyu says, “I love him, and then I left him.”

A silence falls upon the table, and Mingyu feels like he’s suffocating, suffocating underneath all of the tightness in his chest, from the pain of leaving Wonwoo behind and the pain of missing him.

“Did you know,” Minghao mutters, “that there are two meaning to the world ‘leave.’ It means to go away from, but it also means to remain.”

Mingyu looks up. “And?”

“You left Wonwoo,” Minghao states. “But you also left something of yourself with Wonwoo, and now you’re suffering for it.”

Mingyu doesn’t say anything, just stares at the table in front of him, sitting in silence even long after Minghao leaves. 

He sits there, stares at the table, and thinks about how he had left that goddamn apartment, in the life that they had built together and were supposed to live together, and how he had also left his heart behind too, his heart and his happiness, and wonders if it was worth it.

\---

He writes, “I think I stopped being the boy and became the moon.”

The moon is there, hanging in the sky. It’s bleak, and empty. The boy is gone.

Junhui takes the drawing to the apartment for him.

\---

Wonwoo had kissed Mingyu first. It was just them, hanging out, and Wonwoo had said, “I love you, you know?”

Mingyu had said, “I know.”

It was a little like coming home, like the press of Wonwoo’s lips against his was the most natural thing in the world, and he couldn’t believe that he hadn’t done it before.

He kissed Wonwoo second, and third, and fourth.

“I thought you would never kiss me,” Wonwoo said, hands tangled in Mingyu’s hair. 

“I didn’t want to,” Mingyu said. “I didn’t want to push you to do something you didn’t want to do.”

“Funny,” Wonwoo said. “I was doing the same thing.”

Mingyu said, “I always wanted to.”

Wonwoo giggled, pressed another quick kiss to Mingyu’s lips. He got the fifth one. “I did too.”

Mingyu had wrapped himself around Wonwoo then, and claimed the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, until he stopped keeping count, his love for Wonwoo bubbling in his chest, overflowing, taking over. 

It was a good thing Wonwoo kissed him first.

\---

Wonwoo calls. Says, “You’re my moon.”

Mingyu hums. “You’re my boy.”

“Can you stop being my moon?” Wonwoo asks. It’s gentle, it’s soft, it’s full of love and fondness and sadness and pain. “Can you become a boy and we can both be boys together?”

“But I’m your moon.”

A sigh on the other end of the phone. “I never asked you to be.”

\---

“Isn’t it a little scary?” Junhui had asked Mingyu once, looking at Minghao through the balcony doors.

“What is?” Mingyu asked.

“How much I would give up for Minghao. How much I love him.”

Mingyu hummed. “He loves you too.”

“I know,” Junhui scoffed. “We’re dating. But don’t you think it’s scary that I would do all of this for Minghao? I would do anything for him, probably would destroy myself if he had a shot at being happy.”

“Isn’t that what love is?” Mingyu asked. He thinks about Wonwoo, who’s inside with Minghao, both complaining about how much the sun is burning their delicate skin.

“Maybe,” Junhui replied. “But think about it like this: people always say they would die for someone, but would you live for them?”

“I already live for Wonwoo.”

Junhui sighed and slapped Mingyu’s arm. “Okay, bad example. You said before you would go anywhere for Wonwoo, right? Like you would run around the earth for him?”

Mingyu nodded. “Okay, but think about this: if running around the earth would give Wonwoo happiness, but would destroy you, you would do it, right? But what if staying would keep you alive, but not give Wonwoo the happiness you want for him. Would you stay if he asked you to?”

Mingyu didn’t say anything.

“Me too,” Junhui said, because he knew what Mingyu was thinking. “It’s scary, isn’t it? That we would destroy ourselves for the people we love, but we wouldn’t do what they wanted us to do if it meant that they would be unhappy.”

“Love is selfless,” is what Mingyu said.

“No,” Junhui said. “It’s incredibly selfish.”

\---

“I love you,” Mingyu says. 

“I know,” Wonwoo says on the other end of the phone. “Stop trying to be the moon. Please. For me.”

“I don’t want you to be unhappy,” Mingyu says.

“I never was in the first place,” Wonwoo says. “You were enough for me. You are enough for me. I don’t care about the publisher. Please, come back.”

Mingyu takes a breath, thinks about the way Wonwoo’s back was turned to him when he left, thinks about the poem in the literary magazine. “I don’t know how to stop being the moon,” he whispers.

“For me,” Wonwoo says. “For me.”

“I’m not as selfless as you,” Mingyu says. “You let me walk away.”

“No,” Wonwoo says. “That was selfish of me. I wanted you to walk away so that you could be happy, could exist without the guilt of holding me back, even though I knew you really wanted to stay. I was selfish.”

Mingyu doesn’t say anything.

Wonwoo says, “please come back.”

Mingyu thinks about his own heart, how it’s calling him to stay put, to give Wonwoo the happiness he deserves, the chance to publish his works, to receive the recognition he deserves. He thinks about how happy Wonwoo is when he writes. He thinks about all of these things, and feels his stomach churn. 

He thinks about going back, the way Wonwoo could be miserable, could get hundreds more rejection letters, could have to hold his stories close to him because no one would take them. He thinks about how he doesn’t want that, but Wonwoo is asking for it, asking for Mingyu to go back to him, asking for Mingyu to let the dream of Wonwoo’s happiness go. 

He thinks that he’s been too selfish. He thinks that he ruined them because he wanted this so badly, walked away and ruined the life they had because he was too selfish to realize that a relationship is between two people and that his actions would have consequences. 

He’s been so busy trying to be the moon, that he forgot about the boy. 

Wonwoo says, “come back, Mingyu.”

He remembers the boy, remembers how the story ends, with the moon hanging high in the sky and the boy firmly on earth, separated by thousands of miles because the moon gave up everything so the boy could be happy on earth. He remembers how the moon had been too selfish, had abandoned the boy until they could only glimpse at each other from afar.

He thinks he’s the moon.

“Is there still time?” Mingyu asks. Time to go home, time to become a boy, time to stop being the moon.

The question doesn’t make sense, but Wonwoo understands him anyways. “There’s always time, Mingyu.”

“Okay,” Mingyu whispers into the phone. “Okay.”

\---

Mingyu leaves. 

He leaves the sky, hurdles his way down to earth, stops pretending to be the moon.

Starts being a boy.

**Author's Note:**

> remember kiddos, love is complicated and it's a two-way street. being selfish (while thinking you're being selfless) leads to nothing but an unhappy relationship. sometimes, you have to stop being the moon and start being the boy.
> 
> also: i need kudos and comments to live.
> 
> follow me on twitter @sunshinesvt1


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